


This Is A Low

by matchka



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-06
Updated: 2014-09-03
Packaged: 2017-10-30 17:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/334273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matchka/pseuds/matchka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is 1971, and Big Boss has tracked Eva to Hanoi. Enter Ocelot, who is charged with the responsibility of finding her. He isn't pleased about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

1.

There are places in the world that astound with their natural beauty; perfect little pearls of verdant loveliness, unsullied by the clumsy hands of man. There are also places in the world where man has made his mark in the most artistic fashion. They have an appeal all of their own, a lovingly crafted beauty imbued with the vision and passion of their makers, orderly and precise and perfect.

Then there was Hanoi.

Hanoi was neither of these things.

Oh sure, it might have been quite lovely in someone else's eyes, but there was far too much dust to really be sure. The whole place had that dejected, forgotten air of the family attic. People walked about with their heads down. Even the sky seemed skittish, wavering between a bright marine blue and dull dishwater grey, as if threatening rain without any real conviction. It was understandable; North Vietnam was at war. That sort of thing tended to make people a little melancholy.

It was early July and the monsoon had apparently decided to take a little time off. And that meant dust. Layers of it, coating every imaginable surface. Bone-dry vegetation pinwheeled back and forth at the mercy of the wind, thirsting for rain. Conversations in stilted French revealed a disquiet among the people. It did not usually stay dry for such a long time.

It was typical, Adamska reflected, that this goddamn heatwave would coincide so neatly with his arrival.

As John had correctly predicted, there was nothing especially alarming about the presence of a Russian in Hanoi. It was a small mercy. Adamska had anticipated greater difficulty in blending in. As it was, the locals simply thought of him as a Soviet soldier, and that made life simpler. In some ways, it was a relief; even the consummate spy got tired of playing pretend at times.

It didn't make Hanoi any easier to like, though.

Adamska shielded his eyes from the glare of the afternoon sun with one hand. He could feel the first prickle of sunburn across the bridge of his nose, his shirt stuck uncomfortably to his shoulders like a second skin. For the fifteenth time that day, he cursed John under his breath.

_"Why the hell would I want to go to Vietnam?"_

_John gave him a wry little smile. "Don't you want to be a good American, Adamskaska? Do your duty?"_

_He would have spat at that if he hadn't been standing on a very expensive carpet. "Fuck you," he said, and hated how the words sounded in English. "I don't belong to any country. And I don't care for Vietnam."_

_John stared at him for a moment, his lone eye focused on Adamska's features, which were currently contorted in an expression of sulky indignation. Unflustered by his outburst, he regarded him with an intensity that made Adamska's mouth go dry. He was approaching forty now, and his beard was shot through with the first few strands of silver. It suited him._

_"You're too easily wound up," John observed. It was a familiar accusation._

Of course, he did what John asked. He always did what John asked.

And so, Adamska had been staking out the cluster of outbuildings for days now. They were guarded in the most rudimentary fashion, and it irritated him somewhat to recognise the sheer simplicity in taking out the morons wandering like lost sheep, armed with Kalashnikovs (Adamska assumed they were Soviet hand-me-downs; they looked like they'd seen plenty of action already) Child's play, and yet all he could do was hang around, bake uncomfortably in the sun and wait for John.

It was a fucking ludicrous thing, really, that John had insisted he keep a low profile. Adamska was more than capable of taking on such a simple mission, and he felt more than a little insulted at the suggestion that spying might be his sole talent. Well. Spying, and playing comrade, exchanging snippets of hastily learned French with people who had no idea what he was really doing in their country, The latter was a sore point. Adamska hated the French language.

Just a glance. That was all he needed as confirmation. But their subject had proven irritatingly elusive thus far.

The guard completed his fifteenth ponderous circuit of the outbuildings. The soft, crisp sound of dry grass crackling underfoot came to a momentary halt as he stopped, stretching like a cat in the sun. For three long seconds, he was a sitting duck, and there was something almost physically painful about not being able to put a bullet between his eyes. It would serve him right for being so fucking unobservant. A moment passed, and the guard began his sixteenth circuit. Two minutes, four seconds. Every time, without fail; say what you wanted about the Vietnamese, they were pretty damn precise.

Adamska leaned back against the wall, into the small pool of shade that had started to form. The heat rising in trembling waves from the ground was syrup thick. It was the kind of heavy, damp heat that suggested rain, and the thick blue-grey clouds gathering overhead were quickly turning that suggestion into a promise. The sun, small and white in the sky, apparently hadn't got the memo.

Somewhere, out in the brittle patches of long grass that stuck up obstinately from the dry earth, a cacophony of crickets burst into noisy life. Adamska supposed it was the sort of thing that he was supposed to find atmospheric.

_"Why can't you go?"_

_"I'm American." He said it as if it were glaringly obvious and Adamska supposed it was, really; an American wandering with impunity in Hanoi was a laughable idea, given the current political climate._

_Adamska looped his hands behind his head. "What's in it for me?" he asked._

_The small, crooked smile that followed might have meant anything._

Back pressed against the wall, he glanced around the corner again. One minute, twenty two seconds. The guard would be roughly halfway around by now.

The main building, a slapdash concrete and corrugated iron affair, was unreasonably ugly. It was flanked by four smaller buildings and a crop of tall trees. At regular intervals a truck would pass by. That was probably the most exciting thing that happened here. Guards came and went. Nobody entered the central building. It was, apparently, off-limits.

A single drop of sweat ran down Adamska's spine like a shiver.

He ducked into a crouch and moved quickly out into the open, scurrying towards the main building. One minute thirty six seconds. The guard would be rounding the second building, and heading towards the third. That gave him a little time.

Adamska scooped up a handful of dry, pebbly soil, hot against his palm. He got to his feet. One minute thirty nine seconds. He threw the handful at the window. The clumps of earth exploded into powder. The pebbles rattled hollowly against the glass, pattering back to the ground like rain.

One minute forty two seconds.

For a long moment, the only sound was the insistent buzz of the crickets in the long grass.

One minute forty seven seconds.

The brittle sound of boots against dry vegetation, distant but coming closer.

He was about to make a dash for it when a face appeared at the window.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

 

Adamska had previously had the idea that laying flat against the hot Vietnamese earth, feeling the sun colour the back of his neck an angry red, might be less of an ordeal had he not been resolutely alone in loathing the experience.

John liked this sort of thing. Communing with nature, or whatever the fuck it was. Rustling along in the undergrowth on one's belly like...well, like a snake. It just wasn't Adamska's style, and it galled him to have to adopt it.

"You can't just go in waving your guns around," John had told him, and must have sensed the belligerent reply on the tip of Adamska's tongue, because he added "I've seen smarter men than you end up full of holes because they underestimated the speed of their opponents. Trust me on this one."

Smarter men than you.

That had stuck in his throat for days.

Adamska was twenty-eight. He had not yet shaken off the bravado of his early twenties, and it was looking increasingly doubtful that he ever would. If it had been anyone else, he would have shrugged, chalked it up to the fact that they had no fucking idea who they were speaking to.

It wasn't just anyone, though. Wasn't that always the problem?

The depths of Adamska's mind still played host to the fantasy that one day, John would recognise his immense talent, his catlike reflexes, his complete lack of fear. It also played host to innumerate other fantasies, mostly involving the hasty shedding of clothes and culminating in rough, artless fucking on John's stupid antique desk.

The woman at the window would have understood.

He saw her mouth his name, wide-eyed, through the glass, and then the door opened. "Jesus," said Eva. She seemed older, somehow; there were thin, fine lines around her mouth, and a sadness in her eyes that had not been there before. Her long hair had been bleached almost white by the sun. She stood motionless in the doorway, her mouth a perfect 'o' of surprise. It was as if she was staring at a ghost. "Ocelot."

"One minute fifty four seconds," Adamska said, by way of greeting.

"Huh?"

"Let me in."

"Oh." Eva stepped aside. Her feet were bare against the stone tiles. The door clicked shut behind them. The room was deliciously cool, decorated in the most rudimentary style with wildflowers growing in terracotta pots, hand-woven rugs covering bamboo furniture. Outside, the guard moved past the window, staring resolutely into the distance. Right on schedule.

He turned. Eva was still gazing at him at him as if he were something unearthly, her pale blue eyes scanning him from head to toe. It made him itch, knowing she was examining him like that. "What's the matter?" asked Adamska, expression darkening. "Did I grow a second head?"

She walked towards him, extending a tentative hand, as if to touch him, to feel him beneath her fingertips. Instinctively, he shied away, and the corners of her mouth turned upwards, a ghost of a smile at this familiar gesture. "No, I'm sorry. It's just...I didn't think I'd see you again. Not like this."

"John sent me," said Adamska, and realised as soon as he'd said it that it sounded unbearably stupid. What was he, John's fucking errand boy? The scowl deepened. It must have amused Eva, because she turned her face away; she knew from bitter experience that he did not take well to being laughed at. It was a wise move on her part. The sunburn was starting to sting, and his temper was already frayed irreparably at the edges. It would take very little to make him snap.

"He got my messages, then." There was a stove on the other side of the room and Eva was busying herself filling a heavy looking brass kettle with water from bottle. Dressed in worn blue jeans and a nondescript white t-shirt, she suddenly seemed very ordinary. It was hard to believe she had slipped his grasp all those years ago. "I'd have expected him to come here himself. Too good for this kind of work now?"

The insinuation rattled Adamska in a way it probably shouldn't have. "It's not like that," he said, his tone carefully casual. "The war."

"Ah." She raised an eyebrow. Lit the stove with a match. A small blue flame mushroomed into life. He wondered whether he'd tried too hard to sound nonchalant. "Of course. Well. Clearly, being a Soviet has its advantages."

Was she making a fucking cup of tea?

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

Eva stopped mid motion. The kettle hung suspended in her hand, inches above the freshly lit stove. "I'm making tea," she said, as if it were painfully obvious.

"That's not what I meant."

She frowned. He could have slapped her for it. Did a few years hiding out in the back of beyond turn you into a moron? He felt his throat tighten, and he swallowed down his anger, feeling it like a heavy weight in his stomach. It would do no good to scare her now. Not after all those goddamn hours spent under the blazing Hanoi sun, breathing in dust in lieu of air. Besides, John would be pissed.

He exhaled slowly. "I've come to rescue you."

That same hurt, quizzical look. She was like a kicked puppy. Had she really thought he'd play nice? That age might have mellowed him a little? "I know that," she said. "But we can't go now. It's broad daylight, Ocelot. We'll be gunned down in minutes."

"You're unarmed?" It was an observation rather than a question. Nobody with half a brain would keep a captive armed. Then again, they didn't appear to be particularly security conscious. Not even a damn lock on the door. She must have been a very passive prisoner.

"Haven't held a gun in years," Eva replied. "I miss it."

Adamska grunted a response. That, he could understand.

She located two glasses and placed them on the counter. It was all very domestic, this situation. It was like she was quite happy to be kept here. Maybe she was. It was a simple life. He'd never craved that, but others did, and why not? Wasn't it the normal order of things?

"Guards switch over at eight pm," Eva said. "If we're going to get out of here, that's the best time. They'll be distracted. It won't take them long to realise I'm not here, so we'd better be fast."

"They seem pretty lenient with you."

She shot him a crooked smile. "I'm a good girl."

Eva poured out two glasses of hot water and plopped a small metallic sphere in each. Almost immediately the water began to turn a pale yellow-green, seeping out from the holes in the sphere. It made Adamska think of pond water.

"Sit down," she told him, gently now, as if dealing with a particularly difficult child. She inclined her head towards one of the chairs. Her hair lay across her shoulder in a loose ponytail, swinging lazily as she moved. "You're making me nervous."

He did. The bamboo chair creaked uncertainly under his slight weight. She brought over the glasses, foggy with condensation, and set them on the table. He eyed them uncertainly. He was not in the habit of drinking anything that looked even vaguely like urine.

"It's green tea," Eva explained, and sat down on the chair opposite with practiced delicacy. "Very good for you. Drink some, you look dehydrated."

He probably was, come to think of it. His mouth was dry as bone and his eyes stung in that peculiar gravelly sort of way that came with too much sun. The low, cool-hued light of the outbuilding – illuminated only by the small square windows dotted irregularly around the room – was an absolute tonic. A childish part of him wanted to kick off his boots and lay face down on the terracotta tiles.

Still. Dehydrated or not, he wasn't about to touch the pondwater.

She was staring at him again. The hairs on his arms prickled. It was a calm, measured sort of stare, as if taking stock of his features, comparing them to those of the rash, angry young man she had known eight years ago and making minute notes – the dusting of sandy blonde stubble across his jaw (not intentional – three days in a field would do that to you) the long balletic fingers, previously hidden beneath red leather gloves, callused at the tips. And...

"You grew a ponytail?"

She looked at him incredulously. Blinked a few times. Like a fucking goldfish, Adamska thought.

"Yes."

John had had much the same reaction. He wasn't exactly one to talk about hairstyles, what with that stupid mullet he'd been cultivating for the best part of a decade. It wasn't exactly a real ponytail, anyway. More like a little stub. His hair was barely shoulder length loose.

She blinked again. Slowly, a grin broke out across her face.

"It's _adorable_."

Was that a good reaction? Adamska wasn't sure. He wasn't used to being referred to as 'adorable', primarily because he was not, and never had been.

Eva shook her head slightly, as if to clear it. "This is weird, isn't it?"

"Why?"

She leaned forward, clutching her tea in both hands. The sun had cast her skin in pale gold. "When we last saw each other, we were enemies."

"Were we?" It wasn't how he remembered it. It all seemed a very long time ago now. Tatyana the spy, leading him on a merry chase through the cold, crisp Russian forest. Meek little Tanya, who had not been so meek after all, stinking of motorcycle fuel and whore's perfume in equal measures, his acute senses all too aware of how wrong the combination was. He hadn't liked her much. Had liked her even less when it became obvious how enthralled Snake was by her. But enemies? No, that hadn't been quite right.

Their eyes met. The old animosity had quietly dissipated in the intervening years. All that was left was John, and the power he still held over them both. It was the common thread that bound them loosely together. Without it, Adamska thought, there was nothing. The look in Eva's eyes told him she understood.

She smiled without warmth.

"Drink your tea," she said.


	3. Chapter 3

3.

 

Adamska could appreciate, grudgingly, the necessity of patience.

It had its place, at least. Hell, sometimes, patience was an art form. But sometimes, what masqueraded as patience was actually good old-fashioned time wasting. Adamska was shrewd enough to know the difference.

Sitting around in the back of beyond, drinking tea and tentatively reminiscing belonged firmly in the latter category. But John was taking his sweet time. The radio clipped to his chest remained resolutely silent, no matter how hard he stared at it, or how many times he poked it experimentally with a forefinger.

Eight pm. If John had not contacted them by then, they'd make a break for it regardless.

Perhaps the most perplexing realisation about this whole scenario was that Eva was, in essence, a willing prisoner. Her captors brought her food and supplies, kept watch in case she tried to escape – according to Eva, the patrols had initially been far more vigilant but had thinned out once they realised she didn't really want to escape – and occasionally checked in on her. There was nothing keeping her here; she had the brains and ability to get away, unarmed or otherwise. It would take very little expertise to disappear completely into the surrounding forests. Perhaps it simply hadn't occurred to her.

Adamska didn't understand it at all.

"You could have escaped." he said. "Any time. Whenever you wanted. Why are you still here?"

She smiled ruefully at him, as if she had known the question was coming. "What reason did I have? I made a mess of everything. Betrayed John for nothing." Eva leaned back in her seat. They had since moved into the back room of the building, a windowless little dungeon equipped with a bed, a military locker and a first aid cabinet that listed at a peculiar angle, as if put up by someone with the motor skills of a two year old. Plenty of hiding places, though, and that was important. "I never could be proud of my own audacity, Ocelot. God knows I tried."

He smirked at that. "It's not about pride. You did what you had to do."

"Yeah," she said vaguely.

It took a special kind of stupid to willingly accept...no...embrace one's imprisonment on the basis of having successfully completed a mission. Any sympathy Adamska might have felt was rapidly drying up, replaced by a dull irritation, a familiar itch in his fingers. The inimitable sensation of time being wasted.

"You can't be afraid to get your hands dirty," he said, and wondered even as he spoke why he was bothering to convince her. "In the context we operate under, people are just tools. They're useful, and if they're not useful, they're fodder. That's how it is."

She stared disconsolately at the floor, as if she might find absolution in among the cracks.

"There isn't any room for regret," he said. It felt trite and ineffectual, but there it was; the maxim he had attempted to build a life around, the sentiment drummed into him from an early age. More than that; it was the sort of cold, infallible truth that could be bent with mawkish sentiment, but never truly broken. Adamska liked unchangeable things.

"I loved him," Eva said.

It would have been an exaggeration to say that it felt like a punch in the gut, but it was close enough. Adamska's throat suddenly seemed too tight, his lungs too full, as if someone had wrapped both hands tight around his trachea and would not let go. If he didn't exhale soon, he was going to choke, or perhaps burst. Neither scenario seemed particularly dignified, but dignity wasn't high up on Adamska's list of priorities right now.

Their eyes met again. It was getting to be a habit.

What did she want from him? To tell her she had a second chance, that John was coming to sweep her off her feet and take her home, set her up somewhere plush and comfortable in the suburbs and live happily ever after?

Did she want him to tell her that he understood?

Christ, choking seemed like the lesser evil.

He exhaled, looking away from her. The tightness in his chest subsided "I know" he said, because it was the only thing that didn't sound ridiculous. At that moment, he didn't think it was possible to resent anyone half as much as he resented her. This...this idiot, wasting her life out here like it was some sort of penance, waiting to be rescued like some fucking damsel in distress. Was this really what she had become? He felt his mouth twist into a sneer and did nothing to stop it.

Eva was still looking at him expectantly. Adamska guessed she was waiting for him to assuage her guilt, perform a rare act of mercy. The only sort of mercy Adamska dealt in, and then only occasionally, was the kind one affords to a baby bird snatched, bloody and broken, from the mouth of a cat. Snapped necks. Bullets to the brain. Euthanasia, in its purest form. And he had a suspicion that was not exactly what she was hoping for. Not yet, anyway.

Her eyes were so wide, so earnest.

"It doesn't make a difference," he said tersely, and turned away from her. Pretended to focus on some irregularity in the wall. "The world doesn't care who you screw over. It doesn't owe you compensation for a wrong decision. You do your job, and you move on. And if you can't move on, then you were in the wrong job to begin with."

He saw her lips curl into a small, bitter smile, a hint of movement in the very periphery of his vision. He'd made a living out of noticing the small things. The high pitched creak of bamboo, for example, that indicated Eva had stood up, and the soft padding sound of her bare feet on the tiles as she moved out of his line of sight.

"All this time, and you still don't have a conscience," Eva said softly.

It was a fair assessment, Adamska thought. Anyone else might have been offended, but he had worked very hard at not giving a shit about anyone other than himself. It took dedication. Discipline. Years of cultivating a healthy disdain for people weaker, stupider, more compassionate than he could ever be.

The beautiful thing about being a ruthless bastard is that people never underestimated you. They may hate your fucking guts, but that was scarcely important to Adamska, who had learned the hard way that the simplest, most effective method to gain someone's grudging respect was to prove how much better you were than them. That you could think quicker, shoot faster, kill without a shred of remorse.

"I've always thought of it as one of my better qualities," Adamska said.

A pause, as if registering his response. "That's kind of sad," she replied.

He felt the sudden soft fall of a hand on his arm. Eva's light fingers, almost imperceptible against his shirt.

Adamska had never needed much provocation.

The muzzle of his revolver was jammed in the hollow of Eva's throat before he had even had time to think about it. One fist grabbed a handful of t-shirt, lifting her up, forcing her up onto the very tips of her toes. She made a pathetic strangled sound of surprise, hands suspended in mid-air, halfway to surrender. Her eyes were dinner-plate wide and reflected back his own sharp features, narrowed into a predatory scowl.

"Don't touch me," he said.

For a long moment everything was still save for the steady thrum of Eva's pulse against the barrel of the gun and the sweet, delicate scent of her fear. Her mouth opened and closed like a gasping fish.

"I'm...I'm sorry..." she said, although she did not sound sorry; she sounded angry, confused, hurt, a million other things but absolutely, emphatically not sorry. It was to be expected. Choking up words past the gun obstructing one's larynx tended to make people a bit cranky.

"I didn't want to do this." Emphasising each word, as if each one was vitally important. "Do you know how sickening it is to realise you're here out of choice? Do you have any idea?"

She didn't respond. He hadn't expected her to.

"You're a damn coward," he said, relinquishing his grip on her t-shirt. "Get away from me." Spinning the revolver on his finger as he drew it back, an unconscious reflex, years of practice absorbed and made instinctive. Eva stood very still for a moment, watching the revolver slip back into its holster, a single smooth movement. She knew better than to risk pissing him off when he was holding that damn thing.

"Wasn't it a crossbow last time?" she asked, a little sullenly.

He quirked an eyebrow. "Don't change the subject,"

It hadn't been the contact that had angered him. He had never minded physical contact (the frantic rhythm of an enemy's heart spending itself beneath one's fingers, the slick-skinned, breathless exhilaration of a particularly good fuck) No, it was that she had done it out of some misguided sense of sympathy. She had felt sorry for him.

Sympathy did not come naturally to Adamska. He subscribed to the school of thought that suggested misfortune was inevitably a product of a person's own propensity to fuck things up. Adamska did not make mistakes. Ever.

What a fucking joke. If Eva needed comfort, she could go hug a tree. He didn't need her amateur psychoanalysis, nor her sympathy, and he certainly didn't need a damn hug. There was nothing she could give him, nothing that would convince him that they had anything in common except a few months spent eyeing one another in suspicion (and later, in pure unabashed envy) And even that had become irrelevant over time.

But there was still John. There was always John.

(the way John would never look Adamska in the eye when talking about Eva. The way he spoke of her, laced heavily with regret, as if trusting her had been his greatest mistake.)

Adamska shook his head.

"I'm nothing like you," he said, pointing an accusing finger at her.

Eva accepted this wild-eyed non sequitur with a small, uncertain nod, as if he had just told her he thought the moon was just a lie people told little children. He probably would not have blamed her if she had chosen that moment to run away screaming.

A small, insistent bleeping noise sounded in Adamska's ear, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

The radio. The blessed radio.

"Adamska." The voice on the other end was crackly and barely audible, but he knew it was John; he was the only person who ever called him by name. "Listen...there...problem...intercepted..."

The words were swallowed by a swathe of static. It was like listening to a man on a tinny loudspeaker attempting to speak over the din of a violent sea. "You're breaking up," Adamska said, and got an earful of frantic noise in response. The occasional fragment made its way through: can't...to you...border...soon as...none of which amounted to a coherent sentence. The word 'problem', though, had come through loud and clear. It was the kind of word that sank like a stone and settled deep in the gut. The kind of word that could mean anything at all.

"I can't hear you. What's happened?"

"...intercep...the...Hanoi..."

Adamska poked angrily at the radio, hissing through his teeth in frustration. The stream of noise continued, unabated.

"...rendezvous...you..."

"What's wrong?" Eva asked. She held herself warily, as if he might pounce again at any moment. There was an angry red welt forming where the gun had been, a perfect circle of inflamed flesh. He held up an impatient hand.

"...amska...relying...luck..."

The radio went silent.

For a long moment, Adamska stared blankly at the radio, as if waiting for it to assemble the words into something approaching an instruction. As if he could will it into speaking if only he kept perfectly still. Unsurprisingly, it did nothing whatsoever.

Shit.

He raised his head. Eva's features were arranged in a perfect tableau of nervous expectation.

It was, he thought, perfectly justified, given that she was now stuck solely in the company of a gun-wielding sociopath with a ponytail.

"I think," he said "this means we're on our own."

*

Eight pm.

The sun hung stubbornly in the sky, a heavy red presence moving lower as the minutes ticked by, altogether too slowly for Adamska's liking. Outside, in the near distance, the guard truck puttered towards the buildings, moving with all the urgency of a geriatric tortoise.

Slow. Everything seemed to be moving so fucking slowly.

"If you're going to back out, you have thirty seconds to do it." Adamska made no attempt to hide his contempt; Eva was a coward and she deserved to know it, deserved to feel it every minute of every day. She had run away and hid like a child instead of facing up to what she had done, what she had chosen to do.

Huddled into a crouch, back pressed up against the wall, she looked defensive.

"I'm not going to back out," she said mildly.

He acknowledged the response with a noncommittal grunt.

Adamska estimated they would have exactly ten seconds to make a run for it. He had no idea how accurate an estimate it was; for all he knew, the guards might not turn their backs at all and he would be forced to disable them himself. Given his current frame of mind, this almost seemed like the preferable scenario. Dispatching a few mooks was an unparalleled stress reliever.

They would be horribly vulnerable. That much was obvious. They would have to move fast, keep low, be prepared to take cover wherever they could find it. Basic stuff for Adamska. He hoped Eva had not forgotten all her training in the intervening years.

Of course, it would be largely irrelevant if they just kept sitting here like idiots.

"Go. Head for the trees." He pressed his palm into the small of her back, propelling her gently forward. "I'll cover you. Keep low."

She pushed open the door, just wide enough so she could squeeze out. There was the dull thump of her boots against the hard earth as she broke out into a run. Within seconds he was out in the open, body tucked into a low crouch, following her up to where the long wall diverged into two and gave way to a dense thicket. Seconds passed and still no gunshot, no warning cry. He picked up speed, grabbed Eva's forearm as he slipped past. "Faster," he said, and immediately regretted it; even against the ceaseless drone of buzzing insects and the hiss of hot blood in his ears, his voice seemed too loud. Stupid he chided himself, and tightened his hot fingers around the gun.

Behind them, the guard truck spluttered noisily into life.

"Get down," Adamska commanded.

He flattened himself against the ground, Eva a solid presence beside him, partially obscured by the long grass. The truck performed a graceless three-point-turn, kicking up a billow of red dust, and started its slow progress up the dirt path towards them.

One of the more useful lessons Adamska had picked up in observing John was that there was never an appropriate time to underestimate your enemy. No matter how inept, how easily distracted, how poorly equipped they might seem. It would have been simple to assume, based on their lackadaisical performance thus far, that the guards were a bunch of armed simpletons without so much as a shred of common sense between them.

Adamska might have been tempted to test that hypothesis, had he been alone.

The truck moved closer, gravel crunching beneath balding tyres.

Problem was, you could never be sure. The enemy might look, move and behave like a witless American troglodyte in desperate need of a bath, but he could still kick your ass without so much as breaking a sweat, if given the opportunity.

He might look like nothing at all and still prove to be the most frustrating, exhilarating opponent a man could find himself up against. He might end up deep under the skin, the core of an unshakeable, feverish obsession, the kind that had previously seemed so absurd.

Looks, Adamska had learned, were often deceiving.

He felt Eva tense beside him.

Just keep still, he thought. Don't move. They won't look this way. Three fucking days I've been watching them and not once have they ever looked this way. Keep still.

The ground rumbled beneath them. A tremor rolled up through his stomach, radiating outwards like a shiver, reaching a crescendo in the cusps of his teeth. Keep still, he thought, watching with unblinking eyes as the truck rolled cheerfully past, focused entirely on its destination. Dust hissed out from beneath the tyres, rising in a thin, slow cloud. The truck trundled up to where the wall diverged and took the right path, heading towards the city.

"Go," Adamska said.

He wouldn't remember, looking back, the exact moment when the guards had opened fire, or what minute little mistake had caused them to realise their willing captive was being led into the forest by a man in black. A strange omission; his memory of these events was painfully accurate, for the most part.

He would remember the fine spray of blood and glimmering bone as bullet made contact with sternum, and the second bullet which burst the throat, the strange grace of the man as he arced backwards and collapsed to the ground. He would remember how the gunshot sent a cloud of black birds spilling from the trees, out across the crimson-streaked sky, and how Eva had stolen the dead man's Kalashnikov and threatened, in a low, measured voice, to empty it into the second man's brain if he did not vacate the premises immediately – a command the man had seemed very happy to obey. He would remember her fingers closing around the gun like it was something precious. The way she had grabbed his sleeve and told him the truck was coming back, her eyes bright and vibrant and unmistakeably, inimitably alive.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

 

It had barely occurred to Eva, in the years she had been kept captive, that if she just gave freedom another try she might find it an infinitely more pleasant experience than she remembered.

Although Eva wasn't entirely sure that crawling through damp leaf litter with one eye perpetually on the distance already crossed counted as 'freedom', it was nonetheless a pretty intense reminder of everything she had missed, all of the unpredictability she had been denied - and indeed, had willingly denied herself, because who needed excitement and adventure when self-pity was so readily forthcoming?

Ocelot was a few yards ahead, sweeping low-hanging foliage aside with one arm (she had suggested hacking their way through; he had looked at her as if she had suggested they have a tea party. "If you want to leave them a trail to follow," he had said, expression stony "then by all means. Personally, though, I'd prefer not to be killed in my sleep." It seemed eight years had done nothing for his sense of humour.) He did not seem at all concerned about the fact that it was growing rapidly dark, the bright moonlight increasingly obscured by thick canopy. But then, Eva thought wryly, cats had excellent night vision.

It was hard going. Harder than she remembered, but then the ground in Tselinoyarsk had been steadier, the air cooler, less heavy. Her calf muscles burned with effort. To Eva's surprise, the exertion felt good.

Ocelot seemed quieter now, more introspective, and she couldn't quite figure out whether it was the adrenaline of their escape wearing thin, or because he was angry with her. In all probability, it was the latter. Ocelot couldn't have been pleased about having to rescue her from her own existential crisis. She had seen, first hand, how low his tolerance for weakness was. The harsh punishments imposed on any Ocelot squad soldier who had exposed even a hint of yellow belly. Worse than a gun barrel to the throat, in any case.

Without warning the pain in her calves suddenly multiplied itself by fifty.

"Ocelot," she gasped, stopping in her tracks. "Slow down."

He came to a halt. Eyed her with well-worn mistrust. "What's the problem?"

"Leg cramp," she said, through gritted teeth. Jesus, her legs hurt. It felt like her muscles had been replaced by rubber bands, pulled to the point of snapping. She crouched, rubbing ineffectually at her calves with her hands. He was still looking at her, arms folded across his chest, as if assessing the likelihood of her story. Well, screw him. He could keep thundering through the forest if it made him happy. But they had made almost an hour's worth of distance and a little rest wasn't going to get them killed.

"I guess we could stop for a while," he said reluctantly.

Surprising. Or perhaps not; even in the half-light, his forehead glistened with sweat, a pink butterfly of sunburn blooming outwards across the bridge of his nose. His arms hung heavily at his sides. He was tired, but clearly not about to admit to it.

In Groznyj Grad they had told tales of Ocelot's legendary stubbornness. About the time he took a bullet in the thigh and kept running until he passed out from blood loss (and no sooner had the wound been stitched up than the boy Major had been out on patrol again.) His refusal to quit had attained almost legendary status, the subject of reverent whisperings in the barracks and exasperation among the medical staff, who had patched him up more times than anyone cared to remember.

She sat down, stretching her legs out in front of her. Massaging her aching muscles with her thumbs, she watched as Ocelot took a quick inventory of their current location, scanning the surroundings with analytical eyes. It must be tiresome, she thought, being constantly on the lookout.

"They won't follow us," she said. "Not until it gets light again."

"That's just a guess," Ocelot said.

"It's an informed guess. Come on. Sit down."

He did, but he did not look happy about it. "We're not staying here long," he said, in a tone of voice that invited absolutely no argument.

Eva's stomach gave a long, hollow rumble. It occurred to her that she had not eaten anything since morning. It would take some adjusting to the routine of captivity; meals served with military regularity, half a day's outdoor exercise once a week. Things she had never liked until she realised she had grown accustomed to them, and by then it was too late.

"I hope you're good at catching snakes," Ocelot replied. His eyes never left the distance. Just what was so damn interesting out there, anyway? "I don't think there's a McDonald's for miles."

Was that supposed to be a joke? She pulled her knees up to her chest. The leaf litter stuck damply to her jeans, and she swatted at it with one hand. "Did John teach you that one?"

His stare shifted to her. "Not so much," he said, and for a moment Eva swore he looked almost wistful. Almost. "Picked it up from observing him. Can't quite get used to the taste, but they're simple enough to catch."

Eva decided it was probably better not to tell him he'd missed the point by quite some margin. "I never liked jungle cuisine much," she said. It wasn't a lie. Just the thought of eating another flame-roast rat on a stick made her gag. "I remember one time, right after escaping from Groznyj Grad. John caught a reticulated python. Cooked it over a fire and ate it like it was foie gras or something. It smelled awful..."

She paused. Ocelot had stopped listening. Apparently, whatever was happening out in the darkness was far more interesting than her culinary preferences. Fine. It had probably been a mistake bringing John up anyway; she was starting to notice a tendency in Ocelot to become even more uptight than usual at the mere mention of his name.

Eva felt sorry for him, really. It had been sort of cute to begin with – at least, from her point of view, the unknown quantity watching patiently from the sidelines – Ocelot, behaving like a kid with a crush, showing off his little juggling act as if John would even give a crap about those kinds of theatrics. Stealing his backpack and eating all his food as if shovelling tree frogs down his throat would somehow forge a connection (he had regretted that afterwards; Eva hadn't realised a man could vomit that violently and still stand) One thing was abundantly clear; whatever kind of bond John and Ocelot had formed over the years, whatever circumstances had brought them together again, it wasn't what Ocelot had been hoping for.

It had been a surprise, seeing him here, and not only because she had been expecting John. Of all the people she could imagine working alongside him, Ocelot ranked among the most improbable. Certainly, the idea that he might follow John around like a lost puppy wasn't too difficult to accept. That John would trust him enough to send him out here was a different matter.

"We should get moving," Ocelot said, a little sullenly. He got to his feet, brushing the dirt from his trousers. Black uniform, similar to the type John had worn. He had a black leather bandolier strapped across his chest and a holster belt that made him look like Clint Eastwood. His spurs were conspicuously absent. "The territory starts getting mountainous up ahead. We'll walk until it's too dark to see."

She raised an eyebrow. Ocelot's definition of 'too dark to see' probably meant the sort of encompassing, abyssal darkness most normal people found disconcerting. More to the point, it meant perhaps another two hours of walking before calling it a night.

He didn't wait for her response. Turning away, he continued on, guided by whatever internal compass was leading him. She had blindly assumed he knew where he was going. It was a reasonable assumption to make. Ocelot's innate sense of direction was almost as legendary as his stubbornness.

It was another hour before Ocelot deemed it dark enough to stop. By that time, the light streaming through the treetops had dwindled to a dim greyish glow, and Eva had taken to following the sound of Ocelot's footsteps, groping blindly in front of her so she did not collide with anything. The forest was alive with strange and alarming sounds; the natter of creatures high up in the trees, the surreptitious rustle of the undergrowth as unseen things moved alongside them. Eva was starting to understand Ocelot's paranoia.

They had set up a rudimentary camp and a small fire in a shallow concavity in the hillside, just deep enough to provide respite from the buzzing mosquitoes, and to shelter them from the rest of the forest. Here, the heavy fug that had hung over them like a blanket seemed to recede, giving way to cooler air. The sharp scent of wet leaves and rotting bark carried up on the breeze.

Ocelot threw her a plastic-wrapped ration. "I don't know what's in it," he said, in a voice that suggested he didn't particularly want to know. "Might keep you going for a while, though."

Eva thought about unwrapping it. Her most primal instincts told her it was a bad idea. She pushed it aside. "Thanks," she said, and he nodded an acknowledgement.

Ocelot sat near the cave entrance. From time to time, he would draw one of his revolvers and spin it lazily on his finger, a half-hearted motion that carried with it notions of exhaustion, or disconsolation, or perhaps both. He looked pensive. "Eat," he said. He waved a dismissive hand at the ration. "You need to keep your strength up."

She wasn't going to touch that damn ration. She had eaten all the rations she was ever going to eat. They all turned out to be approximately the same thing; a lump of something greyish and unidentifiable that smelt like unwashed socks and tasted almost as bad. The kind of thing they didn't warn you about during basic training. John's obsessive consumption of creatures that were never meant to be eaten seemed almost normal in comparison.

Eva pushed the ration a little further away, into the shadows cast by the flickering fire, and hoped Ocelot would forget he'd ever had it.

"Why did you decide to do this?" she asked.

He reacted like she had thought he would. Narrowed, suspicious eyes zeroing in on her, looking for any sign of treachery. "Do what?"

"Come out here," she said. "Rescue me. It doesn't seem your style."

He gave a small, mirthless laugh. "I don't think you're qualified to make that kind of judgement about me," he said, and spun the revolver on his finger. In the firelight, it glowed a dull gold. "I like to do something charitable every once in a while."

"Right." It stood to reason that Ocelot's idea of charity involved shooting men in the neck. "And what exactly is it that you do now?"

He looked at her carefully, as if running through a long list of potential answers in his head. "Whatever's required of me," he said, after a pause. "Mostly GRU work. Other projects. I keep busy."

"I see." She wasn't surprised. He was who he was; a man created for purpose and acutely aware of that fact, content to play the role. "Nice of you to make room for me in your schedule," she said.

He tipped her a cursory salute. The faintest of smiles played at the corners of his mouth. It suited him. For all his faults, Ocelot was remarkably beautiful, in the same way sculptures were beautiful; all sharp planes and hard, precise angles. Everything about him seemed to have been carefully measured, carved out by someone with a steady hand and an obsessive eye for detail. Pale blue eyes set above carefully slanted cheekbones, lips that erred just slightly towards the feminine.

If only he would just smile every now and again.

"Is there much further to go?"

Clearly, conversing with Ocelot without pissing him off was an exercise in defying the odds. The smile dissipated, replaced by hard-eyed exasperation. "Do you ever stop asking questions?"

"It's not like you've given me a lot to go on."

He seemed to concede that one. "Depends on your definition of 'much further'," he said. "Technically we're crossing the border into Laos. Perhaps another half day, if we make good time. It's all uphill from here."

She leaned back. The cave wall was cool against her sweat-flushed skin. He hadn't once asked her if she would be able to cope. Perhaps he didn't care. It was his job to deliver her, nothing more.

"Sounds like a blast," she said.

He shrugged. "Take it or leave it. Until we get to the rendezvous, I'm all you've got."

"You make it sound like a bad thing."

"Isn't it?" He retained that same air of languid disinterest even as the question hung between them, silently demanding an answer. When one wasn't forthcoming, he smirked triumphantly., turning back to the mouth of the cave. "Next time, get yourself stuck in a more American-friendly location."

At least he hadn't held a gun against her throat this time.

Why should it be a bad thing, anyway? He was smart, resourceful, blessed with preternatural instinct. That he was also prone to violently losing his temper was an inconvenience. She could deal with his anger. She had dealt with far worse.

She closed her eyes.

"You're no Volgin, Ocelot."

She didn't look, but she knew he'd smile at that.


	5. Chapter 5

5.

 

Adamska did not dream.

Not usually, anyway. The presence of dreams was a useful mental barometer; the more frequent the episodes, the greater the likelihood that he was starting to lose it. Dreams never signified anything good.

He stretched. Somehow, he had managed to doze off in a sitting position, his head resting on his hand, Rodin's thinker made flesh. A stiff ache radiated out from between his shoulder blades, descending down his spine. A timely reminder that he was pushing thirty; he had previously laboured under the misapprehension that he would be twenty-five forever.

Eva slept on, stretched out on the cave floor. She must have been tired. Few people could withstand a night on a stone mattress. Outside, dawn had tentatively begun to break, and pale morning light filtered through the treetops.

The problem with dreams, Adamska thought, was that they were essentially a masochistic exercise in illustrating exactly why one's desires were so thoroughly forbidden. They served no purpose except to remind the dreamer, upon waking, that real life was one big consolation prize, thanks for playing.

_John's hands, having skipped all preamble, tug at Adamska's clothes. Callused fingertips map the topography of long-healed scars with a gentleness he had not thought John capable of. "How many of these did I give you?" he asks._

_Adamska doesn't reply. There are more interesting things to do with one's mouth than answer questions. The low moan he elicits is better than any answer he might have given._

Adamska shook his head. Another problem with dreams: the line between memory and fantasy tended towards the irretrievably blurred.

They would have to start moving again soon. Adamska had no idea what they would find once they got to the rendezvous. The radio had stubbornly remained silent since John's last garbled transmission. Somehow, it felt like an omen.

The fire had burned itself some time ago; the ashes were cool to the touch. It would have to be cleared before they left. There was no sense in leaving a trail, however unlikely it was that they were being followed. Getting caught out was not part of Adamska's plan.

_"What happens if I...if I end up in some kind of trouble?"_

_Adamska almost felt disgusted with himself for asking. John, on the other hand, seemed nonplussed. It was a standard concern for most men deployed in a strange land._

_Adamska was not most men. Wasn't that why John kept him around?_

_"If you end up in trouble," John said, "I'll get you out of it."_

_To Adamska, it sounded like a promise._

That had not been a dream. Adamska could recall the stern line of John's mouth, the low ochre light of the drawing-room and their shadows, long and distorted. The sound of rough-skinned hands brushing against stubble as John paused for thought. Those were tangible, verifiable memories and his heat-addled brain was having altogether too much fun adding incongruous details.

Four goddamn days out here, and he was already going soft in the head. He wasn't entirely sure he'd last another day under the unrelenting Vietnamese sun without relinquishing the very last strands of his sanity. The fact that Eva seemed completely nonplussed by the heat only made things worse.

"Eva," he said.

She didn't even stir. Dead to the world. He nudged her ribs with the toe of his boot and tried not to enjoy it. She mumbled something incoherent and rolled onto her back.

"Eva."

"Mmmmnph."

"Time to get moving. Come on."

She looked up at him with sleepy, surprised eyes, as if momentarily unaware of her surroundings.

"Oh. Ocelot. It's you."

He frowned. "Who did you think it was?"

Eva didn't respond. She hauled herself up onto her feet, stretching as she moved. A series of subtle clicks and pops sounded with each extended limb. "What's the time?"

"I don't know." Adamska noted the purplish hue of the morning sky and judged it to be around 6am. "Late enough. We've got a little way to go yet."

Eva ran her hands through her hair, working out the tangles, and Adamska busied himself clearing the ashes, brushing them out onto the forest floor. A dampness hung in the air, thick and tangible. Up ahead, the air would start to thin and grow cooler. The sooner the better, thought Adamska, feeling the uncomfortable weight of his clothes against his hot skin.

Eva dropped down from the cavern, landing on all fours. She drew herself up to her full height, holding the stolen Kalashnikov in both hands, eyeing her surroundings warily. For the first time, she looked vaguely capable. She looked the way he remembered her; confident with a weapon, alert, professional. She had pulled her hair into a loose plait; it hung between her shoulder blades like a length of rope.

"Lead the way, boss," she said dryly.

Adamska barely suppressed a smirk. Her mouth quirked upwards in a small, wry smile, as if that had been her intention.

They walked in companionable silence for forty minutes or so, listening to the forest slowly burst into life. The sounds that had seemed so alarming the previous night were now so quiet as to go almost unheard. The dawn gave way to bright sunlight, casting their surroundings in velvety greens and rich browns and the occasional flash of vivid, ostentatious red. Had Adamska been a different kind of person, he might have found it all very beautiful.

As he had predicted, the ground started to slope upwards. Gently at first, then interrupted by expanses of moss-covered rock jutting rudely out from the ground, leading them up. It was nothing to Adamska (although the shade afforded by the thick canopies was beginning to thin out; the crawling sensation of the hot sun on the back of his neck had returned with a vengeance) but he could hear, just behind him, Eva's laboured breathing, and knew they would have to stop soon.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I could do with a drink," she replied. Her skin was beaded with sweat, her cheeks flushed red. The legs of her jeans were stained some unidentifiably tertiary shade.

Adamska fished a water bottle out of the pack strapped across his shoulders and waited while Eva drank. It occurred to him, as they stood, that it had suddenly grown very quiet. The chatter and buzz they had grown accustomed to had all but disappeared, replaced only by the subdued rustling of the wind in the treetops.

"Something's wrong," he said, and realised as he spoke that he was thinking out loud.

Eva wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "What is?" she said, a little breathlessly. She followed his gaze, looking up at the trees, unaware of what it was she was supposed to be searching for.

"The birds." Adamska took a few cautious steps forward, bringing his hand down to the holster. His fingers brushed metal. It reassured him somewhat to know the gun was still there.

"What are you talking about?" Eva asked. She watched him, puzzled, as he drew himself into a low crouch, pressed his back against a thick tree trunk. Something was wrong. The conspicuous absence of wildlife in this section of the woods, the oppressive silence...

"Get down," he mouthed, hoping she would understand. She stood for a moment, open-mouthed with alarm, and then ducked into a patch of long grass. Not ideal for camouflage purposes but it would do. He raised one hand, signalling her to stay put.

Carefully, quickly, he made his way across the clearing, coming to a halt behind a much larger tree. Up ahead, there was the unmistakeable sound of footfall, becoming quieter as it moved into the distance.

Damn. It had been a stroke of luck that Eva had needed to stop at that precise moment. Any further and they might have found themselves in an extremely awkward situation. He cast a glance in Eva's direction and hoped it conveyed the severity of their situation. Her wide-eyed response reassured him. They were in the shit. Good. That tended to bring out the best in people.

He beckoned with his left hand, drawing his revolver with the other; Eva scurried towards him, assuming that peculiar hunched posture he associated so strongly with John and his damn crawling-through-the-jungle sermons ("You'll get a backache," he had said, through a cloud of cigar smoke, "but that's better than a slug in the brain.") Adamska drew her close with his free hand, brought her to stand beside him. Two figures, backs pressed against the tree trunk, him holding her around the waist as if she were a hostage, her clasping the Kalashnikov close to her chest.

"I need you to cover me," he said, voice low, keeping his eyes trained on the figure moving just beyond the clearing, barely a shadow among the trees. The warmth of her against him was not unpleasant. The realisation surprised him. "In case there's more than one. Can you do that?"

She nudged him in the ribs with her elbow. "Do you even need to ask?"

He nodded. Propelled her towards the other side of the path with a sweep of his arm. She took cover behind a tree stump, her knees drawn up to her chest, and gave him a thumbs up. He moved forward, his feet light, the revolver aimed with uncanny precision at the other man's head.

The stupidity of the enemy never failed to astonish Adamska. The soldier gawped up at the treetops, blissfully unaware of the rustle of Adamska's movement until it was too late; Adamska caught him in a chokehold, jamming the barrel of the revolver in the hollow at the base of his skull.

The man bucked in panic, fighting against Adamska's grip with frantic fingers.

"How many of you bastards are there?" Adamska asked.

The man responded with a long string of unintelligible nonsense interspersed with great gasps for air. His feet kicked and dug at the mulch underfoot, trying to gain some purchase.

"How many?" Adamska asked, teeth gritted; the other man was smaller, but had the advantage of adrenaline. He repeated the same unintelligible nonsense, delivered in a breathless squeal. Adamska rolled his eyes and yanked hard with his left arm. The man let out a strangled yell, louder than Adamska was comfortable with, but it did the job; he ceased kicking, his limbs slackening in defeat.

"You'd better start making some sense, my friend," Adamska warned. The man's gun clattered to the floor; an AKM, Soviet-made. Somehow, he thought Russian would be as lost on this idiot as English seemed to be.

"He's speaking Lao," said Eva. She had emerged from her hiding place and approached them slowly, gun raised.

"You understand him?"

She shook her head. "Chinese, some Vietnamese, but I don't speak Lao. He's terrified, but you don't need me to tell you that."

"Shit."

"I can try speaking to him in Chinese,"

"Okay, fine. Quickly."

Eva peered closely at the man. "Actually, he seems to have lost consciousness."

Adamska looked down. The man's head lolled to the side like a ragdoll's, his arms slack. It saved him having to remove another moron from the gene pool. He released his grip; the man tumbled to the floor bonelessly, his mouth a neat black 'o' of surprise.

"You should get into cover," Adamska warned.

"If there were any more, they'd all have come out when he screamed." Eva grabbed the man's boots, tucking his feet beneath her arms. "Help me move him."

"What?"

She stopped dead and stared at him as if she'd just caught him picking his nose. "We can't leave him here," she said. "What if a patrol comes this way? They'll know the enemy is nearby. Didn't John teach you anything?"

"Apparently not," Adamska grumbled. He scooped the man's shoulders up off the floor, faintly disgusted by the sweat soaking through the thin stuff of his tunic. The man sagged between them like a length of rolled-up carpet. The whole scenario was ridiculous; it occurred to him briefly that if they were caught by the enemy mid-task, they might just kill themselves laughing.

They left him lying behind a tree just off the main path and set off through the clearing. Up ahead, the forest gave way to cliffs, and to cloudless blue skies. Adamska made his way to the very edge of the clearing, where the trees stopped abruptly and the grass grew thin and scrubby. A thin wind whistled up from the valley. Below them, a thin path cut into the cliff edge led precariously down, flattening out where the Song Ma river crossed into Laos.

Overhead, the staccato rhythm of a circling helicopter came into clear focus, hidden from view by the treetops.

"That makes things difficult," Eva said.

Adamska made an indistinct sound in response and craned his neck for a better view. Just visible beyond the perimeter of the forest was a white helicopter, conspicuous against the blue.

He felt Eva's fingers close on his elbow and fought the urge to pull violently away.

"That makes things very difficult," she said, and the tone of her voice made him turn. Her face was blank, eyes fixed on the helicopter.

"Explain?" he said.

"That's a Chinese helicopter," she said.

He stared at her uncomprehendingly for a few seconds. Then he realised.

"Shit," Adamska said, exhaling slowly. He extricated his arm from her grip, drew it back to his side. "They know you've escaped. They've come looking for you."

Eva nodded. Her mouth was a thin, grim line.

They hadn't considered it, him and John. The Chinese considered Eva missing, presumed dead, and in any case her (accidental) betrayal was a thing of the past. They had planned the entire fucking thing without ever considering the Chinese a threat. What an error to make.

He felt Eva's gaze burn the back of his neck and knew what she must be thinking. If you had spent half as much time weighing the risks as you did fantasising about sucking his cock...

"We'll be sitting ducks out there," Eva said.

"You think I don't fucking know that?" Harsher than he had planned, but effective; she withdrew as if stung. Overhead, the treetops rustled and shifted as the chopper passed by, circling slowly like a bird of prey.

They had no choice. They would have to employ stealth. They would have to do it John's way.

Christ, did everything have to come back to him?

"I've got a plan," he said.


	6. Chapter 6

6.

 

_What's the plan, Adamska?_

The voice at the very back of his mind was so unbearably smug that Adamska momentarily wished it was possible to reach in and throttle his own psyche.

He crept through the long grass. The bright sunshine meant his black clothes would not be particularly useful as camouflage. But that was tough luck; he would have to make do.

The path snaking down the cliffside was thin, carved inexpertly into the rock. Adamska had seen this sort of thing before. With any luck (and shit, did they ever need it) there would be hollows and tunnels interspersed throughout. But this wasn't Groznyj Grad. They couldn't put their faith in something that might not be there.

The helicopter had moved further into the forest, facing away from them. Adamska nodded to Eva. They headed out into the open. Without the trees overhead the light seemed too bright, too strong, and the feeling of total exposure was a prickling sensation in the tips of his fingers. An itch to swing round and pull the trigger. But the helicopter was too far, and in any case, a wholly unsuitable target for such a refined weapon.

The cliff edge was abrupt; there was barely enough path to accommodate two people, but in their haste it somehow didn't matter. The vertiginous drop into the forest below seemed preferable to the consequences of being caught.

Behind them, the helicopter continued its ponderous circuit of the treetops.

"Please tell me this wasn't part of the original plan," Eva muttered, eyeing the cliff edge with trepidation. A carpet of dark green stretched out as far as the eye could see, broken in places by slivers of glimmering grey; thin rivers and tributaries slipping in and out of the forest. They moved carefully, testing each step before committing.

"Only way down," Adamska said. "Unless you don't mind breaking both legs."

She grimaced at that.

Up ahead, the sallow rock was pitted with deep concavities, as if it had once been subject to heavy gunfire and had begun to erode from the inside out. Adamska felt his way along, testing the stability of the rock with his hands.

The sound of whirring blades grew louder.

"It's turning back around," Eva said.

"I know" Adamska said. "Keep moving."

"We're going to be killed."

"No, we're not." It was hard to be deadpan when one was stuck between certain death and certain capture, but Adamska had grown used to these kinds of situations. Eva stared imploringly at him; her mouth was a thin white line of panic. The prospect of recapture apparently terrified her. And why not? She was considered a traitor. There was no telling what they would do to her.

It was fortunate, then, that Adamska had no intention of being caught.

The helicopter was almost upon them; a plume of dust and soil burst into the sky above them, carried along by the wind. He grabbed Eva's forearm. She let out a yelp of surprise. Instinctively, he slammed a hand over her mouth. Adamska pulled Eva into the alcove; it was barely deep enough for both of them. Even in the shadows he felt horribly exposed.

Above them, the deafening clatter of the helicopter reached a crescendo. The air was thick with organic matter, swirling and eddying in the breeze. Sandwiched between the cool rock and Eva's warmth, Adamska almost felt claustrophobic. He took in a deep breath and tasted dust.

"They'll see us," Eva whispered.

"They won't. Keep still. Don't talk." She smelled like earth, like dry heat and dust and sweat, and it wasn't as unpleasant as it should have been (christ, how he hated that realisation) He felt the quick, panicked rhythm of her pulse beneath his fingers and noticed he was still holding her forearm, his fingers digging hard into her flesh. He released her sharply.

The shadow of something large and close passed across the cliff face.

Adamska felt Eva tense against him.

The helicopter seemed to hover above them for an age; great gusts of hot air buffeted their hiding place, making it impossible to breathe. Move on, Adamska thought, shielding his eyes with one hand. You won't find us here. You can't possibly find us. Move on.

As if by some miracle (although Adamska would not think of it as a miracle so much as a triumph of will) the helicopter rose back up into the sky; the shadow diminished as it ascended. Plumes of dust pinwheeled in the updraft.

As the air settled, an uneasy silence settled over them.

"They'll come back," Adamska said.

"I know," Eva said.

What next? She seemed to be asking; the faith she had put in him was alarming. It almost made his skin crawl. Had she forgotten who he was? What he was capable of? A man who so hated being taken by surprise that he had attacked her just for touching him without permission. Christ, she must have been desperate.

They made the descent and crossed the border in relative ease, although Adamska could not shake the feeling of being watched; a crawling sensation deep in his gut, a transient restlessness. The canopy was thicker down here, the trees taller and more numerous, and afforded them better cover. It didn't do much to reassure him.

Eva was starting to tire. She had not complained, and Adamska admired her for it in some vague way. But her stride had grown heavy, her head low. The Kalashnikov hung from her hands as if she could no longer bear to carry it.

They had almost run out of water. That was one problem.

The other problem – a much bigger one in Adamska's mind – was that his radio had not made a single sound. As far as he knew, John was missing in action. As they drew ever nearer to the rendezvous, Adamska found himself bargaining with whatever nebulous concept of a higher power he currently believed in – _Let me hear from him. Please. I'll...christ, I don't know, open an orphanage for kittens or something. Just let me hear him speak._

If Eva was similarly concerned, she was doing a sterling job of hiding it.

The dry heat of the hills had given way to a heavy humidity. It was like wading through syrup; the air was so thick it was barely breathable. Adamska's ponytail stuck to the back of his neck. He had briefly contemplated hacking it off with his survival knife, but goddamit, it had taken him months to grow and he wasn't about to be defeated by a little heat.

"He's going to hate me, isn't he?" Eva said.

It had come from nowhere. Adamska regarded her impassively. "I don't know. Maybe. You did double cross him."

"So did you." Deadpan, eyes unblinking. She seemed almost bitter about it.

Adamska shrugged. "I never pretended to be on his side," he said.

 _I didn't run away like a fucking coward_ he thought, and wondered why he didn't say that too.

She sighed. Her shoulders sagged; she was clearly exhausted, demoralised, ready to throw in the proverbial towel. Small wonder. They had been walking for hours, crossing alien territory in this stifling heat. Even Adamska was starting to feel the strain.

"Does he trust you?" she asked.

Adamska fought the smirk that threatened to cross his face. Did anyone really trust him? He sincerely doubted it; most people were smart enough to see past the charm, the ruthless efficiency, the military pedigree. What passed as trust between him and John was, in actuality, an unspoken agreement: _don't screw me over and I won't kill you_.

It worked for both of them.

"I don't know," Adamska said, and relished the lie, "I don't know if he trusts anyone. Does it matter?"

"No," she said, a little sullenly. "I guess it doesn't."

"I told you already. We chose this life. You could have been a waitress or a whore or anything, but you chose this. It's too late to cry about it."

"Do you ever regret it?"

"Never." Adamska did not have to think about it. Living a 'normal' life seemed absurd to him now. He had been raised for purpose, true, but he was sure that he would have ended up this way regardless; it was in his blood, ingrained at some deep genetic level. How fortunate that he had been born without a conscience to trouble him.

The answer seemed to placate her, at least for a time. The questions mercifully ceased. They moved on in silence, dragging their tired bodies through the forest. Something instinctive told Adamska they were nearly there.

It was another half an hour before they arrived.

The rendezvous point was what appeared to be a battered old shack, set in a clearing, listing at a peculiar angle. Beyond the trees was a fast-flowing river, a wide grey ribbon glimmering in the sunlight.

"This is it?" Eva asked.

"Were you expecting a five star hotel?" Adamska said irritably. "Yes, this is it. Don't think you can relax. We're not safe here."

The shack was empty save for the empty frame of an old military cot, and a bundle of old blankets mouldering in the corner. The floor was bare concrete; there was a faint mildewy smell in the air, just conspicuous enough to be unpleasant. But there were no signs of life anywhere. On one hand, this reassured Adamska. On the other, it meant that John had almost certainly not been here.

He dropped his pack on the floor, flexing his aching shoulders.

Now what?

The answer seemed obvious. Wait for John.

What if John never comes?

The answer to that was not so clear cut. They were adults; they did not have to wait for Papa's permission to get the hell out of here. One radio call would ensure they were in South Vietnam before morning.

Of course it wasn't an option. Leaving without John had never been a fucking option. If Eva didn't like it, she could go hang. But they were low on water, and practically out of food, and it would only be a matter of time before the patrols made their way out here. And then they'd both be screwed.

Eva sat on the floor, resting her head against the wall. She watched Adamska pace silently, following his movements with half-lidded eyes.

"You're worried," she said.

A variety of potential responses crossed Adamska's mind, ranging from fuck you to a detailed analysis of the myriad reasons he had to be worried, and why she ought to be too.

In the end, he settled on a noncommittal grunt.

"Like drawing blood from a stone," she said, and closed her eyes.

Afternoon became evening with almost unnatural speed. Adamska let Eva sleep, exploring the area beyond the shack. It was in the middle of nowhere, and he wondered why anyone would bother building anything out here, let alone use it as a goddamn meeting place.

With the river to the north, the routes to their position were limited. It reduced the chance of an ambush. It also meant they would find it difficult to get away if they were caught. Adamska drew up a rudimentary patrol route and busied himself guarding the shack until Eva woke several hours later. It had grown dark by that time, and Adamska determined there was little sense in patrolling in the pitch black; Eva would remain awake while Adamska slept, or at least attempted to.

*

Adamska dozed fitfully.

He had been teetering on the verge of real sleep when a sudden flurry of motion pulled him back into consciousness.

His hand was halfway to his gun before Eva spoke.

"Ocelot, it's me."

He felt the gentle pressure of a hand against his wrist. In the darkness, and still in the residual throes of sleep, the experience was disorientating. He drew sharply away, sat bolt upright; it seemed undignified to panic, but sometimes it was entirely appropriate.

"Ocelot," she said again. "Calm down."

"That's not my name," he said.

She ignored him. He felt her slip the revolver from its holster, lay it on the floor with a gentle thud. His hand snapped out and closed around her arm, yanked her close; she let out a small, pained gasp, pulling ineffectually against his grip.

"What the fuck are you doing?" he demanded.

Even in the pitch black, he knew she was smirking.

"Don't play stupid," she said.

Her free hand snaked up his neck, her fingers knotting themselves in his hair.

The resultant crush of mouths, inelegant and unromantic, was perhaps the last thing Adamska had expected. For a long moment, he seemed incapable of movement, his tired brain registering the pliancy of her lips, the soft pressure of her teeth, the sharp pull of her fingers in his hair.

He wondered if she could taste his panic, the way he had tasted John's cigar.

Adamska's fingers closed around the soft flesh of Eva's throat as he pulled away.

"What the fuck," he said, a little breathlessly "are you doing?"

"Do you know how long I've been on my own?" she said. Her throat pulsated unpleasantly beneath his fingers, her voice vibrating against his skin. Even in the oppressive warmth a fierce heat seemed to radiate from her, burning against his fingers.

"I could kill you." It wasn't a boast. It would take nothing at all to crush her windpipe, to snap her neck with both hands. Adamska knew countless strange and interesting ways to kill a man. He hadn't yet tested all of them.

"I know."

He could see, faintly, the outline of her face, the grim, predatory determination in her eyes. Even as she struggled for breath, she betrayed not even a trace of fear.

Adamska released her from his grip.

"Pretend I'm him," she said.

 _You won't taste like him_ , he thought angrily. _You won't feel like him, and you sure as hell won't fuck like him_.

That last thought was an assumption.

This time, when Eva kissed him, he was not taken by surprise. And when her lip split against his teeth, when her fingernails anchored in his flesh and pulled so hard at his hair that he swore (some colourful Slavic obscenity that made Eva smirk) they each felt the fleeting thrill of a small victory.

To an onlooker, they might have been fucking, or fighting, or both.

*

 _Pretend I'm him_.

Afterwards, in the still heat of 3am, it occurred to Adamska that she had been doing just that.

It didn't trouble him.

She sat, Kalashnikov propped against her shoulder, some ten feet away, staring out of the window. The distance between them was not uncomfortable. It was a simple physical need that had been sated; there was nothing more that needed to be addressed.

 _Pretend I'm him_.

She had known, somehow. Was it so obvious? Adamska had always considered himself very good at hiding his thoughts, his feelings; it was a little bit alarming to have been discovered, and in such a guileless manner.

It didn't matter.

Eva understood.

In some ways, that was a blessed relief.


	7. Chapter 7

7.

 

What woke Adamska wasn't an alarm, or a gunshot,

It was the crackle of static.

Quiet, at first. Like a rustle of leaves, or a whisper somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind. He mumbled in his sleep, some wordless complaint, and buried his head a little further into the crook of his arm.

The crackle was undeterred. A low, insistent hum pervaded the dreamless space inside Adamska's head, willing him to pay attention. It was fruitless; Adamska was bone-tired, and the sound was sufficiently subdued and nondescript so as to go unheard.

The crackle regrouped. Formed itself into something concrete, something definite. Something guaranteed to get Adamska's attention.

A voice.

"Adamska."

He woke with a start. Sleepily pointed his gun at nothing in particular, then drew it back, confused. There was nobody in the shack. A wan light filtered through the cracks in the wood. Eva must be outside. It must be morning. Shit, he'd slept longer than he had intended.

He got to his feet, brushing the dust and detritus from his uniform. It was quiet, save for the low hiss of the river, and the usual background of whistles and chirrups from the birds. And something else. Something close, buzzing ceaselessly...

It took Adamska a full thirty seconds to recognise the radio clipped to his chest.

He cursed at it in several languages and jabbed at it with his forefinger.

"Adamska," it replied.

In his haste to grab the receiver, he almost tore the whole thing off.

"This is Adamska," he said, and tried to pretend his voice wasn't trembling.

There was a short delay before the radio spoke again.

"This is John." A pause, filled with the ambient noise of his location, and underwritten with yet more fucking static. "What's your location?"

"I'm at the rendezvous."

"Is Eva with you?"

"Yes." Adamska swallowed hard. The tension and panic of the past few days were beginning to unfurl, coursing through his veins in bursts of adrenaline. It made his skin itch. "John, where are you?"

"Nearby. It's okay. I'm fine. Were you pursued?"

"There was a helicopter up on the ridge. They didn't see us." The sheer lack of concern in his voice made Adamska want to lash out. Where the hell had he been? Where was he now? What was the trouble he had run into? He swallowed the questions down; there would be time enough later on.

And besides. John was safe. That was all that mattered.

"Good. Stay where you are. I'll be with you soon."

The radio went silent before Adamska could respond. That was probably a good thing; given his current conflicted emotional state, any response would have amounted to a garbled mess of words interspersed with bursts of incoherent anger. He took a long, deep breath. Christ, his hands were shaking. He was a fucking mess.

The thought that he might someday lose John was something Adamska seldom entertained. It wasn't that he thought John invincible; he'd seen the man bleed many times, seen his bones broken and his eye torn (and whose fault had that been?) No, it was the arrogance of youth, and with it, the assumption that he couldn't possibly lose something he cared so deeply about.

The days of radio silence had played backdrop to the whispering paranoia, that fear that constricted his gut. That John was dead, and he would be left, directionless, with only that consortium of fools lead by Zero for company. And they'd weep and mourn as if they understood what had been lost. A figurehead, a deity, a legend. All very commendable sentiments, yes, but they seemed to miss the point. John was not Big Boss, any more than Adamska could still call himself Major Ocelot. He was a man, with a name. Sometimes, Adamska thought he was the only one who saw that.

Anyway, he had been right, as usual. John wasn't dead. A small mercy.

Adamska stepped out of the shack. He couldn't see Eva. Perhaps she was patrolling somewhere nearby. In the warm, pale light of morning, the shack seemed to be holding itself together through sheer force of will; it listed at a dangerous angle, the slats piled against one another in the most rudimentary fashion. A miracle, really, that it hadn't collapsed on them during the night.

He scanned his surroundings. No obvious signs of movement. Either her stealth skills had greatly improved, or she'd gone further than he had anticipated. Either would have impressed him a little; her meekness was beginning to dissipate, revealing shades of the spy underneath.

Adamska stretched. His limbs were stiff and sore from crashing out on the concrete. He tested each finger carefully, flexing them one by one. He wasn't nearly old enough to fall prey to rheumatism, or arthritis - diseases reserved, in his opinion, for those who really ought to retire – but he had taken to checking periodically. Another concession to getting older.

The sound of splashing came in a sudden burst from the river.

He drew his gun, alarmed. Had they found them this fast? He had anticipated at least a full day's head start; these forests were tough to navigate, even with the benefit of modern technology. And goddammit, they had been so careful. He approached the riverbank slowly, gun in hand.

There were clothes in the trees.

Adamska stopped He surveyed this odd scene with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation. A t-shirt that had once been white hung from a low branch, dripping water in fat drops. A little higher up, an almost-dry pair of jeans and a bra. Eva's clothes.

Beyond the reeds, he saw a flash of movement.

"Eva?" he said, and was disgusted at how timid he sounded; of course it was Eva. The enemy weren't usually in the habit of stripping their captives and hanging their wet clothes from trees. But what the hell was she doing?

"Ocelot? Hold on, I'll be right there." Her voice seemed disembodied, floating just above the dull roar of the water. After a moment, she pulled herself up onto the bank. She was naked, save for her underwear; her wet hair stuck in long tendrils to her skin. For a long, awkward moment, Adamska felt almost squeamish, and sought to look away. There was, he thought, quite a wide gulf between fucking someone under cover of darkness and being confronted with their nakedness in the cold light of day; the female form, although not entirely unpleasant in Adamska's estimation, was not something he was used to seeing in such flagrant, unashamed detail.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I've been hiking through jungles and sleeping on the floor," she said matter-of-factly. "And in case you haven't noticed, it's been extremely hot."

"You're...washing your clothes?"

Eva looked at him as if he were stupid. "Yes, I'm washing my clothes," she said. "Is that allowed?"

Adamska blinked slowly. "You left this place unguarded in daylight," he said, surprised at how calm he sounded. "You leave cover and go out into the open. You don't think a helicopter might have spotted you?"

"I'd have heard a helicopter," she said sourly.

"You're practically naked," Adamska said.

"Yes," she replied. "I practically am."

He gestured wildly with his arms. "Were you just going to stand around here, wearing nothing, waiting for your clothes to dry? What if we're ambushed? What the hell were you thinking?"

If the situation hadn't been so fucking infuriating, Adamska might have laughed. Eva, standing on the bank, shamelessly bare and worse, paying no attention to what was going on around them. She had her arms crossed over her chest, staring at him with an expression of sulky defiance. Perhaps she wasn't used to men demanding she put her clothes on. Or perhaps she wasn't used to not getting her way. Adamska wondered how John had coped with her tagging along.

"You should have woken me," he said.

"You looked tired."

"I was tired. I would have survived."

She sat on the grass; water streamed from her hair. Sunlight refracted through the droplets that studded her naked skin. "You take everything so seriously," she said, and sounded almost disappointed.

"I'm a professional," he said.

"Is that what they call it now? " Eva's lips curled up into the ghost of a smile. "Taking orders because you hope he'll offer you a pity-fuck?"

He would have lashed out at her, but there was something horribly disarming about her nakedness, her vulnerability. It would have seemed reprehensible, even for him. She looked up at him incuriously, waiting for the stock responses – that's not how it is, there's more to it than that – and with a stab of shame, he realised he could offer no better reasoning. Of course, it wasn't so simple. But there were certain things Adamska did not intend to share with Eva. Whatever had happened to her in the interim, she was still a spy.

She smiled then. "I'm sorry, Ocelot."

So his discomfort was obvious, then. Fucking perfect.

"That's not my name." Muttered, barely audible. He felt his cheeks burn and hated himself for it.

"So you said. What should I call you, then?"

"My name is Adamska."

Eva mused on it for a second. "Cute," she said. "Adam and Eva."

"You're not Eva." Adamska knew little about who the real Eva had been – only that it had been a man, and that this woman had taken his place, appearing almost out of nowhere on Sokolov's arm. Not that he had ever really bought that Tatyana act.

"It's as good a name as any," she said, dismissive. "Adamska. Do many people get to call you that?"

"I've got a few aliases." A different alias in every country, it seemed. It seemed neater; less of a trail to follow, less chance of being tracked down. Eva took in this information with a nod. Seeing her there, near-naked, limbs stretched out like a cat in the sun, it was easy to forget just how well she knew this business. That she'd been trained young, just like him.

"I like it," she said, and turned her face towards the sun.

Adamska left Eva at the riverside and walked past the clearing, into the edge of the surrounding forest. He hadn't told her about the radio call. It hadn't been deliberate; he had been thrown somewhat by her wading out of the river like a fucking Bond girl. But there was some small, possessive part of him that didn't want her to know. Let her worry, if she cared so damn much about him.

No sign of disturbance. That was reassuring; Adamska did not want to lead John unwittingly into an ambush. He moved quietly through the trees. Counted his steps. Listened out for incongruous sounds. As he walked careful circuits in the still heat, he felt sweat bead on his forehead, and idly wished it had been his idea to jump in the river.

Adamska had been walking for close to an hour when he heard the first shots.

They were close by, somewhere in the forest to the west of the shack. His hackles rose. He stalked a wide circle up to where the ground started to slope gently downwards, heading further into the valley. The dry crack of pistol fire echoed loudly in the quiet, sending birds into the sky in great black gouts. Adamska ducked into a crouch, held his gun in both hands. Someone was coming his way, moving slowly through the leaf litter. He couldn't see it yet; its profile was obscured by the bright shafts of sunlight that burned through the canopy like searchlights.

His radio let out a series of staccato bleeps. He hissed at it, and fumbled for the receiver.

"Not a good time," he growled.

"I can see you, Adamska," the radio replied. "Help me with this body."

He almost leapt out of his skin. He had thought himself relatively well hidden. Apparently, John's skills extended to spotting allies hidden in the shadows. Adamska scowled, and got to his feet. A hundred yards ahead, rounding a tree, was John. He was dragging a dead man by the legs, leaving a trail of disturbed mulch in his wake.

"Was he alone?" Adamska asked.

"Seems so," John said. "Cover the tracks anyway."

There was never any fanfare, any grand gesture when the two of them reunited. It always seemed like a foregone conclusion, that they'd both come out of it alive. Nonetheless, as the last of his anxiety dissipated, Adamska felt a little angry at how complacent they were when it came to each other's survival.

He retraced John's steps to where the man had fallen, kicking the wet leaves and dirt back over the disturbed area. There was no blood. That was a plus; blood was hard to hide, even in low-lit areas. There was something about it that drew the human eye, some primal instinct that made its presence impossible to ignore. By the time he had returned, John had propped the body up in a cluster of close-growing trees, hidden in the shadows. He gave Adamska a small, grateful smile. His hair was wild and damp with sweat, sticking to his face in thin coils. There was a patch of torn fabric and dark, dried blood on his shoulder. Adamska raised his eyebrows.

"You got shot?" he said. Instinctively, he reached out a hand, and John gently caught it. Held on just a fraction longer than he ought to have, and returned it to Adamska's side.

"Grazed," John said. "It's fine, Adamska."

Adamska nodded uncertainly.

"You made it, then," he said. There was a gladness in his voice. For a brief moment, Adamska thought he saw relief in John's single blue eye, bright even in this gloom. He dismissed it as wishful thinking.

"Of course I did," Adamska replied. He holstered his gun.

"Where's Eva?"

"She's back at the rendezvous." He thought of her, alone back at the rendezvous, and of the man John had taken out in the forest. "She's uh...she's..." sitting naked on the grass, his mind offered. He shoved it away. "She's safe."

John nodded. This time, the hint of amusement about his lips was unmistakeable. Adamska flushed for the second time that day. He averted his gaze. Mockery was not something he could take in good grace, however good-natured it might be.

Adamska felt John's hand on his shoulder.

"You did well," he said. "And I'm grateful."

He couldn't help himself. Adamska pulled John's face to his own, anchoring his fingers in the other man's hair. He felt the sharp prickle of stubble against his skin, the sharp angles of John's face beneath his fingers, skin slick in the heat. John's hands, solid and real and pressed against his shoulders. Even as he kissed him, he knew this was a concession, a gift from John. A thank you. Was this what he had become? A loyal dog, begging for scraps at his master's table? Shame burned deep in his stomach, and he drew back, extricating himself from John's loose embrace.

"Eva's alone," he said. He had missed the way John tasted. Had missed the familiarity of his body pressed against him.

If John was surprised at his reaction, he did not show it. His lone eye travelled the length of Adamska's body, returning at last to his face, to the pained expression he knew he must be wearing.

"That's pretty conscientious of you, Adamska." The comment did not register as sarcastic. "Okay. Let's regroup."

"And then?"

"And then we get out of here."

Get out of here. Such a simple proposition, and yet Adamska could think of nothing more sublime than doing just that. Away from this sweatbox forest, these dirty clothes, this fucking mission. What he wouldn't give for a bottle of vodka and somewhere cool to sleep. For the luxury of solitude.

Adamska did not say any of that.

He nodded.

"Sounds good," he said, and let John lead the way.


	8. Chapter 8

8.

 

Any apprehension Adamska might have harboured over Eva's state of dress quickly dissipated as they approached the rendezvous. She was fully dressed, and whipped the Kalashnikov around to face them as they came through the trees, aiming square between Adamska's eyes. He put his hands up in a gesture of mock-surrender.

Eva's eyes flitted from Adamska, to John and back again, and for a moment her expression was so ambiguous that Adamska was not sure whether she was pleased to see them or not. She lowered the gun slowly. A small, uncertain smile spread from the corners of her lips, lighting up her eyes.

 _This is it_ , Adamska thought wearily, and stopped walking. He would observe the scene from a safe distance. _This is where you fly into his arms and declare your love. This is your chance. For christ's sake, don't waste it._

She didn't do that. He could have killed her for it.

They stopped short of one another, each observing the other with a distant interest, as if staring at an artefact from a past life. John inclined his head in a polite nod. Adamska wanted to laugh at the stilted formality of the gesture, so inappropriate within the context.

"It's been a while," Eva said. There was no mistaking the cool undercurrent of her tone.

 _'I loved him'_ she had told him, and for the first time the actual meaning of the phrase registered in Adamska's mind. 'Loved'. Past tense, as in something once felt, an old photograph left to blanch in the sun. A one night stand many years ago, the precursor to Eva's betrayal. Hardly the greatest catalyst for an enduring love affair. Still, a one night stand was more than Adamska had ever had, and wasn't he still waiting for the day that John would love him even a fraction as much as he loved John?

No. It couldn't be entirely past tense. Not with John. Maddeningly casual in his approach, he seemed to treat his admirers as if their interest in him could only be short lived. As if they would forget about him soon enough and move on to the next one. It was the nature of the career mercenary, this unconscious refusal to love and be loved, because who could say when war, or betrayal, or some other force might snatch that person from you? It was a sensible approach, and Adamska had previously been a devotee.

(Major Ocelot, preternaturally beautiful, possessed of a self-assurance befitting a man of his youth and pedigree, a man who might have been in demand had it not been for the gravity of his rank. He would take his pick of the men and they would leave the next morning, astonished at the skill and ferocity with which he fucked. Never the same man more than twice, and they were always gone by morning.)

"You came down via the ridge, right?" John asked. "The route on the map?"

"Yes," Adamska nodded. "It was guarded by helicopter. It was sheer luck we made it down at all."

"Well, that's where we're catching our ride out." John shielded his eye from the sun with one dirt-streaked hand, peering up into the treetops. "Think you can work us up a little more luck?"

Adamska was aware of Eva's eyes on him. Scanning his face, registering every minute movement, every twitch of his jaw and flicker of his eyelids. He wanted to swat her away like a mosquito.

"I'll see what I can do," he said, and he thought he saw Eva purse her lips in disappointment.

"Okay," John said. "We can't waste any time. I've already radioed in the helicopter. We have maybe two hours. Let's go."

Eva blinked slowly. "Right now?"

"Got something better to do?" Adamska asked. He had been soft on her, letting her rest when she needed to, timing their journey based on her ability, and not his own. John's brisk pace was always going to be a shock to her system.

As they headed into the jungle, Adamska wondered if he would regret treating Eva with kid gloves.

Where Eva had previously been welcome company, suddenly she seemed to be a constant presence, a ghost over Adamska's shoulder. It wasn't fair of him and he knew it; it was hardly her fault that he could not stop pining for things that were never going to happen.

After an hour of walking, the sky burst open and the rain that had threatened for days finally began to fall. Slowly at first, a treacle-thick drizzle dripping from the leaves. As they progressed, the rain doubled, tripled, quadrupled in intensity until they could no longer hear themselves speak over the thunderous sound of water beating against the treetops.

It was a relief. The droplets stung Adamska's sunburnt skin, hitting him like a handful of coins. It soaked his clothes and streamed down his face, washing away several days' worth of sweat and dirt. It sliced through the cloying, thick air like a knife through butter.

"Couldn't it have waited until we were out of here?" Eva yelled, her voice tinny over the roar of the water.

 _I've waited days for rain_ , Adamska thought. Impulsively, he leapt into the air, his hands finding slippery purchase on a low branch. He threw his entire weight behind it, dragging it down, the damp bark splitting under the pressure.

By the time Eva realised what he was doing, it was too late.

A great stream of water gushed from the displaced tree and engulfed her, crashing to the ground. She let out an inappropriately high-pitched yelp. Still hanging from the tree, monkey-like, Adamska grinned widely at her. It was perhaps the first time he had really smiled during this whole affair, and Eva's indignant reaction, coupled with her ragged, half-drowned appearance only served to fuel his amusement. It was childish, and spiteful, and a hundred other things Adamska should not have been delighting in.

He had expected some sort of admonishment from John, but he merely looked at him with curiosity. Perhaps a little taken aback by this impulsive act of mischief; Adamska was the gift that kept giving, the enigma that never stopped surprising. He liked that. He liked staying just out of John's reach, throwing curve balls every time the other man thought he'd got the cocky Russian kid all figured out.

Only one thing remained constant, and that Adamska had no control over; the ease with which John could coax his allegiance. All it took to secure was a kiss, and increasingly even less than that. The crooked smile John seemed to reserve for Adamska alone. Christ, it wasn't supposed to be like this. Adamska was the spy. Mind games were his reserve. And now look, a pitiful man who could be disarmed by the right kind of smile. Who could be sent to some dusty hellhole to track down a person he had very little interest in on the promise of some nebulous reward.

The worst thing was knowing that John did none of this out of malice. Hell, he probably wasn't even aware of the power he had. He'd always been oblivious to his own charms.

In the rain, the forest seemed to take on a different quality. The sunlight that had illuminated the dark space beneath the treetops had disappeared. All around them were great masses of dull greens and browns, and empty spaces coloured grey by rain. The droplets beat a fast rhythm on the ground, driving them onwards, and as the ground rose the trees began to separate, showing a patchwork of grey overhead. Good sneaking weather, but that advantage could go both ways, and Adamska found himself growing increasingly paranoid, tracking minute movements with his eyes,

John walked a little way ahead of them, scouting out the near distance.

Despite the rain, and the soft ground which made progress slow and laborious, Eva had not complained. She looked pitiful; her clothes clung to her skin, her hair plastered to her face. She looked small, and a little afraid. That was understandable. With such poor visibility, there could be enemies lurking unseen just beyond the wall of water. Despite the relief from the heat, it was becoming obvious that nobody felt particularly good about this sudden change.

Somewhere in the distance, a rumble of thunder rolled across the sky.

"With any luck, they'll have relaxed the patrols. You know, because of the weather." Even as Adamska spoke, he knew he was clutching at straws. The closer they drew to the ridge, the more apprehensive they grew. It was all very well hoping for an easy exit, but what was hope if not the flimsiest of emotions? A fervent wish based on how things ought to be, as if the universe gave a fragment of a fuck about your opinion.

"With any luck," Eva agreed uncertainly.

A momentary gladness flitted across Adamska's mind. They both knew it was bullshit and yet he sensed her agreement was designed, at least in part, to reassure him. To foster the thought that maybe he was right.

She cared about him, at least a little. Who'd have thought it?

"Stop."

The command came from nowhere. John ducked into a crouch and Adamska followed suit, craning his neck in the direction John had been heading. Nothing but grey, and a fine mist of rain which seemed to obscure everything beyond. Still, if John had seen something...

"What's there?" Adamska said in a low voice. Behind him, he saw Eva lower herself slowly, creeping forward until she was roughly between them. Her jeans and shoes were caked in thick mud and clung wetly to her legs.

"I saw shadows. Movement." Losing an eye had not diminished John's abilities. Adamska had long ceased to feel guilty about it; it had hardly been his intention. He had no control over luck, or mindless acts of altruism.

Of course, if John had not acted the heroic moron, that bullet would almost certainly have killed Eva.

The pang of guilt that came on the heels of the thought was still slight enough for Adamska to dismiss.

He squinted into the distance. Still nothing, and complete silence to boot; perhaps John had seen a bird, or an animal, the silhouette of something fast and smart and good at staying hidden. Or perhaps the creeping paranoia that had so afflicted him and Eva had finally started to nip at John's heels.

He was about to fire some pithy remark at the other man when he finally saw it.

A dark blot in the foreground, moving nimbly and without sound. Followed by another, a less graceful specimen whose motions came accompanied by the splash of mud and the crunch of twigs.

"Son of a bitch," Adamska breathed.

"There was a third," John muttered. "I saw three of them. Where's the other one?"

The blots were moving in their direction, slowly taking form as they came closer. Limbs came into focus, and hands and guns, and Adamska was contemplating making a break for it (his revolver tucked into his palm, ready at the slightest provocation) when there was a sudden sound from behind them, and he knew that it was too late.

The third man stared dumbly down at them, as if he could not quite believe what he was seeing.

In the brief window of time afforded by his moronic behaviour, Adamska had already unfurled from his position, striking out like a coiled snake. He rammed the butt of his gun into the man's cheek; the satisfying crunch of shattered bone reverberated through his arm. He fell to the ground in an undignified heap, limbs splayed, and Adamska placed a boot square in the centre of the man's chest.

"Don't even think about moving," Adamska said.

Behind him, there came a sudden burst of rifle fire, a clattering racket as bullets embedded themselves in the foliage. John and Eva were still low, relying on the darkness to keep them hidden until the enemy drew closer.

Adamska was wide open, a lone figure in the dim light.

The man squirmed beneath him. His nose gushed blood, so dark it might have been black.

"The first rule of combat: always be prepared." Adamska ground his heel into the man's sternum and was rewarded with a choked whimper. He could sense Eva's eyes on him, and knew she would be discomfited at the way he revelled in the man's pain. "You let me surprise you. That was a stupid mistake."

The man babbled something in a language Adamska did not understand, eyes wide and glassy and afraid. He couldn't have been much older than twenty. It was no excuse.

Another burst of rifle fire. Adamska felt a rush of air as bullets flew past, thudded into the forest floor. Christ, they were bad shots.

"Any time you feel like it, John," Adamska muttered.

He needn't have spoke. John chose that same moment to break cover. Adamska saw, over his shoulder, the blur of movement as he and Eva leapt from their hiding place, weapons raised, and was entranced for a half-second at the fluidity of motion, the strange grace with which John moved.

There followed a long moment in which sound and movement and light and dark all blended into one, dizzying and indistinct and punctuated by the sort of sharp, breathless agony that could only be a bullet slicing through flesh.

Adamska knew then that he'd broken the first rule.

Through the haze, he thought he saw the man beneath him smirk. His hand travelled to his side in a long, sweeping motion that seemed to take hours. His fingers came away bloody, and he lifted them to his face, staring uncomprehendingly at them.

He heard the snap of a pistol being reloaded, and reacted in the way that had become second nature. The handle of the revolver slipped beneath his fingers and as he lined up the shot, he realised he was no longer sure where the man ended and the ground began.

The sudden cessation of movement from beneath his foot was all the confirmation he needed.

"Adamska!" someone shouted, and he stumbled backwards, struggling to stay upright. The grey cloud at the edge of his vision seemed to be closing in, and although Eva's face was no more than a metre from his, it seemed horribly distorted, as if seen through broken glass. Her hands grabbed at his shoulders, shook him so that his brain seemed to rattle in his skull, and the one coherent thought that slipped into his mind was that he should be trying harder to stem the blood loss.

His hands felt their way to the bullet wound, jammed themselves against the blood-sticky flesh. Close range. The bastard had caught him at close range and who could tell how much internal damage he'd caused? Blood seemed to spill from between Adamska's fingers. He lowered himself into a crouch, resting his head on his knees, clinging tenaciously to the last threads of consciousness. What a stupid thing to do. A fucking rookie mistake, taking his eyes off the captive – the armed captive – and why? Because he'd been staring at John's ass. A split second loss of concentration and here he was, plugging the hole in his side with his fingers.

Eva's hands, hot even through the rain-soaked fabric of his uniform, shaking him, telling him to get up.

 _I deserve this_ , he thought.

His eyes had slipped closed before his face made contact with the ground.

_No._

_This is not how it's supposed to end._

_Get up, Adamska._

That voice, strangely familiar, floating through the darkness like a wisp of cigar smoke.

_Goddamit, Adamska. Get up._

His own voice, heard through a filter of age, and sharp-edged vodka, and bitterness.

_What are you, boy, a fucking weakling? Get the hell up. Don't think you can rest yet._

_Okay_ , Adamska thought numbly.

And he pushed.

*

"Adam!"

It seemed to him, even through the grey, that the scene was almost exactly as he remembered it. His face, pressed against the damp ground, still prickly with sunburn. Eva's panicked presence at his side. The bullet wound, burning just beneath his ribs. He could only have been unconscious for a minute.

"Mnf," he said.

He pressed his palms flat against the ground, pushing himself up, and felt a fresh gout of blood seep into his clothes. With every movement his head swam, the world pitching violently backwards, sideways, spinning in long, drawn-out circles.

Christ, it was just a bullet. He'd been through worse.

Adamska slowly uncurled into a standing position. For once, Eva's hands on his back were welcome, holding him steady even as his limbs threatened to buckle completely. "Where's John?" he asked. His voice was thick in his mouth; his lips struggled to form the words.

"He went ahead," she said. "To see if there are any more of them."

"Oh." He'd found himself stuck at an angle, his torso inclined slightly forward. His left hand pressed against the wound, and he wondered offhandedly whether the uniform was ruined beyond repair.

"He'll be fine," Eva said.

"I know," Adamska replied. He stepped away from her, freeing himself from her touch. Of course John would be okay. He didn't make stupid mistakes. Didn't take his eye off the enemy, even for a second. In the near distance, the two other men lay on the ground, staring up at the sky with unblinking eyes. Their weapons were missing. Adamska noticed the Simonov at Eva's side, and the flash of something between the trees that indicated John's return, rifle in hand.

"The cliff is just past this patch of forest," John said, somewhat breathless from the uphill trek. "Adamska. Do you think you can go that far?"

"Stupid question," Adamska said. He had intended for it to sound offhand and casual, but he knew from John's expression that it hadn't sounded that way at all. "Yes. Let's move."

John's hand on his shoulder stopped him in his tracks. He lacked the strength to push past, and hissed through his teeth in frustration; a single goddamn bullet, and here he was, kitten-weak and helpless. "What?" he snapped, drawing himself sharply up to his full height. The resulting wave of nausea almost sent him back down to the ground, but he held firm.

"Where did you get hit?" Neutral tone; John's face betrayed no pity, no disgust. John gently prised Adamska's hand away from the wound, studying the area, judging its proximity to major organs. His warm fingers wrapped around Adamska's cold palm, unperturbed by the blood.

"Just a graze," he said, and John smirked a little at that.

"Alright," John said, freeing Adamska's hand from his grip. "We should assume heavy enemy presence. Stay alert."

They moved slowly, for stealth's sake as well as Adamska's. The ground veered sharply uphill as they progressed and the effort made Adamska's head ache. He was still bleeding. How much blood could a man lose before he had to stop? He hoped he wouldn't have to find out.

As they neared the top of the cliff, moving along the thin path in small, shuffling steps, it quickly became apparent that the helicopter was nowhere to be seen.

"Shit," Adamska said.

John grunted in response, heading to the cliff edge. He scanned the horizon. The sky was heavy with clouds, a uniform grey stretching as far as the eye could see. Adamska eased himself to the ground. An unbearable tiredness had crept up on him. He heard John speaking into his radio, and the loud buzz that indicated a response. It seemed to take hours, although it couldn't have been more than a few minutes.

"Stay awake," Eva said, crouching beside him.

That surprised him. He hadn't noticed she was close by.

"I know," he said, a little petulantly. Then, as an afterthought, "I'm fine. Really."

She gave him a knowing look. "We're both very impressed with how tough you are, _kotyonok_. But even you can't run on empty."

"Not empty yet," Adamska muttered.

Eva squeezed his shoulder and got back to her feet, heading over to where John stood. Adamska watched them exchange words, acutely aware of their body language; formal, unfamiliar, uncertain. The chill in the air between them was obvious, and yet it seemed a comfortable kind of chill, one without anger or malice.

It was cold now, up here, where the wind blew freely and the rain fell without obstruction. Adamska had been shot enough times to know what hypovolemic shock felt like; bullet wounds had an unpleasant habit of bleeding profusely, and trekking uphill did not usually help matters. The pain had become so much white noise, a constant dull throb that registered somewhere in the depths of Adamska's mind. But Eva was right; he could not go on like this for much longer.

Admitting that to himself hurt worse than any bullet wound ever had,

A low clicking sound drifted towards them from above the trees.

"Think you can climb?" John asked.

"I guess I'll have to," Adamska replied. The wind doubled in intensity, throwing leaves into the air; they spiralled down, past the cliff edge and into the forest below. The telltale chatter of helicopter blades sounded from over his shoulder, growing steadily louder.

And there was something else. Something quieter, higher-pitched, coming from ground level.

It had previously occurred to Adamska that their escape had seemed far too easy. The complete absence of enemy presence since the last incident seemed...abnormal, somehow. It had seemed a safe bet that they would encounter more along the way.

Adamska sat on the grass, momentarily unable to move, and watched with dull surprise as the men came into focus, winding their way through the trees, armed to the teeth and clearly prepared to catch their targets off-guard.

He heard Eva swear loudly behind him.

"Adamska," John said. "You need to get up."

He bit back the sarcastic response he'd formulated and struggled to kneel. In the corner of his eye he saw the silhouettes approaching, the crisp green of their uniforms now visible in the bright daylight. As he watched, panting with effort, the helicopter swept over the trees. The sound of it was deafening, and the men bursting through the forest seemed taken aback, stopping momentarily in their tracks as the trees whipped back and forth.

"Adamska, now."

He realised then that he had forgotten how to move.

They hadn't started firing yet, but it wouldn't be long. He willed his arms to move, his legs, his fingers and toes.

The harness hung limp in the air, looking for all the world like an insurmountable challenge.

Adamska had managed to shuffle into a crouch when he felt someone grab him from behind, wrenching him into a standing position. A flare of unbearable pain radiated out from the wound and he retched, feeling bile rise up into his throat, burning inside his chest.

"Get to safety," he heard John say.

"Can't," he muttered. "You...you and Eva..."

"Adamska, you're hurt. I've got to get you out of here."

An irrational surge of fury coloured Adamska's cheeks red. "I don't need rescuing," he said, even as John wound the harness tightly around him. "Eva should go. There's too many of them..."

John's mouth, hard against his, was all the persuasion he needed.

"Get in the goddamn harness," John said, and there was no anger in his voice, just irritation at his stubbornness. His face was so close Adamska could taste the sweat on his skin. The straps hurt, but he could hardly complain about it. As the winch began to turn, he felt his feet pull sharply off the ground and he was in the air, dangling like an idiot while Eva and John held off the enemy with borrowed weapons. He watched stupidly from his vantage point, his bloody hands clinging onto the rope as if for dear life.

The rest seemed to happen in slow motion, a movie played out below him. John and Eva, moving ever closer to the cliff edge as the enemy advanced, the chatter of bullets lost beneath the helicopter's mechanical whirr. The burst of bright blood, exploding like a scarlet firework as bullet impacted against enemy bone. Adamska had never thought of battle as beautiful and indeed, the haphazard choreography of the firefight below was far from graceful. But – and perhaps it was the blood loss – there seemed something almost romantic about it all, the two heroes outnumbered and yet unflustered, aim unhindered, the very epitome of professionalism.

The man who pulled him into the helicopter seemed familiar, although Adamska could not place him. He wriggled free of the harness, let it drop to the ground and watched as Eva clambered in, not bothering to fasten it around her.

"We're under fire!" someone yelled from the cockpit. "Johnny, speed it up!"

"I'm going as fast as I can!" the man yelled, and pulled Eva up. Again, the harness was lowered, and John began his ascent, without the luxury of cover. A few of the men had retreated into the forest, but they were still greatly outnumbered, and those that remained had taken to firing rather indiscriminately into the air, aiming for whatever part of the helicopter they could hit.

Adamska saw the man aim between John's eyes before he'd even steadied the rifle.

The pain seemed to have sharpened his senses, and the revolver seemed lighter than normal, the barrel cooler. Though the buzz in his head was insistent, he lined up the shot and steadied his arm with his free hand.

The man's finger pressed down on the trigger.

The last thought that ran through Adamska's mind before the recoil turned the world black was a half-formed prayer to nobody in particular – _please, don't miss_.


	9. Chapter 9

EPILOGUE

 

Adamska had never thought he'd be quite so grateful to be on American soil, but there was a first time for everything.

The bandage wrapped around his torso felt too tight, the American sun too weak, and as they exited the plane it seemed to him that the thick Asian air had weighed down on him for so long that he might remain stoop-shouldered forever.

It was Zero who welcomed them back, embracing them as if they were heroes. He smiled with too many teeth; the upward crease of his mouth deepened the furrowed scar that ran the length of his face, made his features hard and sharp and predatory. Adamska accepted the handshake with an amiable smile, watching with irritation as his hands slipped into John's with comfortable familiarity.

"You must be Eva," Zero said. A flash of teeth; Eva smiled, charmed by his geniality. "You gave us quite the run-around back in Russia, I must say."

"I was well-trained," Eva replied.

"I can see that. Come, we have much to discuss." Zero guided her, one hand on her elbow, and as they headed off, chatting like old friends, Adamska was suddenly aware of John's gaze burning the back of his neck.

"I owe you, Adamska," he said.

"You owe me nothing," Adamska replied. It had been a lucky shot. Christ, he hadn't even seen it; he'd been too busy being unconscious.

John's hands travelled up his spine, rested on his shoulder blades, and it took all of his will not to turn around, to give in to the embrace. Even the sharp friction of John's cheek in the crook of his neck, the brush of John's lips against his throat could not make him give in. He was nobody's pet.

"I don't think you understand," John said, and his voice was a whisper against Adamska's skin.

"I know what I am to you." Deadpan. He felt John drawn back slightly, the warmth of him receding.

"And what's that?"

Adamska did not respond. He jerked sharply out of John's grasp.

Behind him, he heard John chuckle.

"What?" he said, turning sharply on his heels; his features contorted into a scowl.

"You're a proud creature, Adamska." This time, when John's hands ran the length of his torso he did not flinch, and when John's fingers brushed the bandaged area just below his ribs, so gently as to almost be loving, he found himself staring defiantly up into the other man's face and was surprised at what he saw there. That John could still catch him off-guard, even after all this time, was truly a wonder.

"Let me pay you back," John said.

For once, Adamska did not have a smart retort.


End file.
